


Letters

by fantasticallyobscure



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Fluff and Humor, Friendship, Gen, a little bit of adapting canon, graves and newt are pen pals, newt's book gives graves palpitations, or pre-slash if that's how you want it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-28
Updated: 2019-01-28
Packaged: 2019-10-18 05:45:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17575004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fantasticallyobscure/pseuds/fantasticallyobscure
Summary: Percival exchanges letters with Newt and gives him some advice on his new book. Particularly that bit about bloody basilisks.





	Letters

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a little snippet that has Graves recovering from being held by Grindelwald and out of his former job. It roughly ties in with events from both movies and is intended to sort of finish in the same time as the end of Crimes of Grindelwald. But really, it's an excuse for a bit of nonsense.

Graves had started writing letters mostly out of boredom. The process of recovery was apparently a long and tedious one involving a great deal of doing nothing. Of course, Graves’ definition of ‘nothing’ and the busybody ‘prolonged healing specialists’ breathing down his neck at unsociable hours were rather different. He began to plan. There was research to be done, strategies made for a variety of possible futures; the events of 1926 would not be so easily filed away to gather dust in the records department. He had to gain back his strength, test and push the new limits set upon him. He remembered the cadence of his mother’s voice - _Resting need not be idle, Percival_ \- and made the best of the situation he found himself in, if admittedly not always cheerfully.

But even a man such as Graves could not stave off boredom and the melancholy of enforced solitude. 

And so he began to write. Old colleagues. Estranged relatives. Possible allies and informants. But the most interesting correspondence came from a simple expression of gratitude. His writing to Newton Scamander was a matter of personal pride and he chose his words carefully. The reply he received (when it finally arrived) said more about the man than all of the first-hand accounts of his former aurors. Firstly, it was carried not by a pigeon, nor even an owl, but an enormous disheveled monster of a creature that looked nothing so much as like a haphazard pile of elaborate ladies hats. It blinked bulbous eyes at him and squawked out a sound like a subway car full of bricks until he reached out and took the slightly battered envelope. It then hooted like a foghorn and took off in a blast of sparks and feathers. The window-sill was singed. Graves had a vision of the thing making its way down 49th Street.

_Not my problem. Not my problem…_

The letter was, in a word, bizarre.

_Dear Mr Percival Graves,_

_Call me Newt. Your letter surprised me so much that I rather upended the bucket of feed for the miniature giant squid into the enclosure. And myself at the same time. Poppy was rather delighted by the interruption. It’s a good thing I know a particularly handy spell that restores water and fire damaged papers._

  


Graves found himself unwillingly riveted. It was a stream of consciousness the likes of which he had never encountered. He wrote back almost immediately.

The reply this time was faster. It was also delivered not by the Hat Bird but something that resembled a feathered cat and whose hissing did nothing to contradict this impression. Did Scamander simply have a legion of bizarre winged beasts waiting around to deliver international mail? 

In the months that followed the correspondence continued, and somehow became the most uplifting part of his routine. Graves imagined he must have had more open conversations with companions in his youth but they escaped him. His recent years certainly lacked acquaintances with whom he might discuss anything except work and politics. He caught himself smiling at the strange birds that appeared in his apartment window, in spite of the catalogue of violations his brain was tallying up in the background. Sometimes the letters made him laugh aloud. Others made him pinch his brow in frustration at Scamander’s sheer disregard for any rule or law that inconvenienced him. The worst part was that the man seemed to respond to scolding on the matter with gleeful nonchalance. The only time he took any of it on board was when it clearly benefitted his precious creatures. Apparently Scamander’s school House was founded on loyalty and hard work. Graves imagined it quite possibly had never had a more well-fitting member. He wondered if he could call this unusual man a friend. At his age it was embarrassing to contemplate such a question, never mind ask, despite the fact he couldn’t shake the conviction that Scamander - Newt - would not find it so.

When he received an advance copy of _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_ he set aside his routine to immediately delve in. He knew that Newt would expect a more critically-engaged response than ‘well done’. As he read, he found himself nodding and snorting and shaking his head, even smiling. Until he read a passage that made him wish to pop over to wherever this ridiculous man was and give him a thorough throttling. 

_The creation of the Basilisk has been illegal since medieval times, although the practice is easily concealed by simply removing the chicken egg from beneath the toad when the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures comes to call._

As it was, he had to make do with scribbling out a response immediately that alerted his criminal of a correspondent that he couldn’t simply advise the general public to evade the law. It was a serious matter. There were plenty of things in the book that Graves felt shouldn’t have been advertised to all and sundry, but this was blatantly advocating breaking the law! Ridiculous man!

The reply was unusually quick and unusually brief. And, by the looks of it, wrapped in protection and privacy charms. 

_Dear Percival,_

_I thought you’d like that bit. Well, there’s nothing to be done now, I’m afraid, as printing has begun. Perhaps I’ll make revisions for the second edition. Consider it a token of friendship._

_I was relieved to hear that your physical recovery has progressed so well. In fact, I was wondering if you might be up for showing me some of that research you’ve been doing._

_Paris is really quite lovely this time of year._

_Newt_

_P.S. That was a hint. The postcard you’re holding is another one._

  


Graves sighed. It looked like there was packing to do.


End file.
